Lars Frederiksen – To Victory 12″ EP (Pirates Press Records)

Recently, the Pirates Press Records has announced To Victory, a brand new self-titled EP release of Lars Frederiksen from legendary ska-punk group Rancid. As far as I am informed, this is his first solo recording and has nothing to do with his group Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards. This solo venture for Frederiksen started back sometime in the middle of 2020 when he sold out the landmark Oakland club Eli’s Mile High Club. It was supposed to be one of the many planned solo gigs. Covid happened, and the rest of the dates had to be canceled or postponed. Luckily, at least some positive things happened out of this situation, so Frederiksen decided to record some songs from the set and release them as a 12″ EP release.

This material includes six compositions, four previously released by some of his bands, plus two cover songs. Therefore, you can enjoy in God And Guns (Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards), Army Of Zombies (Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards), Motherland (The Old Firm Casuals), Skunx (Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards), Tomorrows Girls (UK Subs), and Comin’ Home (KISS). Lars wanted to bring the spirit of live performance into the home stereo, so this material resembles the feeling you would experience on a live show. His approach to these compositions is simple, raw, sincere, emotional, but powerful enough due to his recognizable singing style. Perhaps these versions are stripped down to the max, but Lars somehow managed to retain the spirit of true punk rock in these compositions, and that’s the first impression you’ll get while listening to this release.

While some of you may expect the entire acoustic solo EP like many punk rockers record it nowadays, this is not the case with this material at all. There are some acoustic instruments included in the particular tunes, but it seems that Frederiksen remains loyal to his primary weapon of choice, and you’ll experience heavy sounds of electric guitar from scratch to finish. Besides guitars, you’ll hear the sounds of piano and Hammond organ, while tambourine mimics the rhythm section at the particular numbers. At some points, you’ll probably even think about how these songs sound seven better performed with fewer instruments than usual. For some reason, they sound even more punk rock than before. Lars Frederiksen avoided the common mistakes made by some other punk rockers who recorded their solo releases and kept this material far away from indie-folk or folk-punk. Each one of these tunes still strikes hard like any streetpunk/punk rock/rock’n’roll anthem you heard before.

This material comes with an appropriate visual identity that suits Frederiksen’s Danish ancestry. From a giant bird as a centerpiece on a front cover artwork and Nordic font to the runes used on the vinyl labels, everything resembles Frederiksen’s pagan roots. This EP comes in several variants, such as standard black vinyl, ultra-clear with black smoke vinyl, royal blue with black galaxy vinyl, black in ultra-clear ghostly vinyl, black ice with white splatter vinyl, black pinwheel with six white spokes vinyl, gold nugget vinyl, yellow cassette, green cassette, pink cassette, and compact disc. The second pressing also includes neon violet and standard black vinyl. The official release date is November 19th, and the release is up for pre-order. Pick up your weapon of choice and enjoy. Head over to Pirates Press Records for more information about ordering.